WFMY
WFMY-TV, virtual channel 2 (UHF digital channel 51), is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and serving the Piedmont Triad region (Greensboro–Winston-Salem–High Point). The station is owned by Tegna Inc. WFMY's studios are located on Phillips Avenue in Greensboro, and its transmitter is located in Randleman. The station is carried on cable channel 9 in most parts of the market. History WFMY's facility was the site of the first live television broadcast in the state of North Carolina on August 18, 1949 at 6:10 pm and officially signed on the air on September 22, 1949 as the second television station in North Carolina, debuting just a few months after fellow CBS affiliate WBTV in Charlotte. It was originally owned by the Greensboro News Company, publishers of the Greensboro Daily News and Daily Record (now merged as the Greensboro News & Record). The News Company had put WFMY-FM on the air in 1947, but it shut the radio station down in the early part of the 1950s, eventually selling the license in 1955. The new owner brought it back on-the-air as WQMG-FM (97.1). WFMY-TV has been a primary CBS affiliate from its sign-on, but also initially carried secondary affiliations with NBC, ABC and DuMont. NBC programming moved to WSJS-TV (channel 12, now WXII-TV) when it signed on in September 1953. WFMY also shared the ABC affiliation with WSJS until October 1963 when WGHP (channel 8, now a Fox affiliate) signed on. WFMY lost the DuMont affiliation when that network ceased operations in 1956. By the late 1950s, the station had moved to its current studio facility on Phillips Avenue, and also built a new transmitter there. In 1980, it built its current tower in Randleman. In 1965, the News Company was bought by what eventually became Landmark Communications. The station was acquired by Harte-Hanks Communications in 1976. Harte-Hanks sold the station to the Gannett Company in 1989. In October 2012, Gannett entered a dispute against Dish Network regarding compensation fees and Dish's AutoHop commercial-skip feature on its Hopper digital video recorders. Gannett ordered that Dish discontinue AutoHop on the account that it is affecting advertising revenues for WFMY. Gannett threatened to pull all of its stations (such as WFMY) should the skirmish continue beyond October 7 and Dish and Gannett fail to reach an agreement. The two parties eventually reached an agreement after extending the deadline for a few hours. On June 29, 2015, the Gannett Company split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. WFMY was retained by the latter company, named Tegna. During the analog television era, WFMY boasted one of the largest signal coverage areas in the Southeastern United States. It provided grade B coverage as far south as Charlotte and as far east as Raleigh; its transmitter is located almost halfway between the two cities. The channel 2 signal traveled a very long distance under normal conditions. It appeared in The Charlotte Observer television listings well into the 1990s, in part because it frequently aired network shows that were pre-empted by Charlotte's WBTV. It appeared in The News & Observer television listings well into the turn of the millennium. Although its digital signal operates on UHF, WFMY's secondary coverage area in digital is almost as large as that of its former analog signal. This is because its digital signal operates at a million watts, equivalent to five million watts in analog. Category:CBS affiliated stations Category:Channel 2 Category:1949 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1949 Category:Greensboro Category:Winston-Salem Category:High Point Category:North Carolina Category:Former ABC affiliates Category:Former NBC Affiliates Category:Former DuMont Affiliates Category:Former NTA Film Network affiliates Category:Tegna, Inc. Category:VHF Category:CBS North Carolina Category:Justice Network Affiliates Category:WeatherNation TV Affiliates Category:Quest Affiliates